And so this is Christmas
by everytimeyougo
Summary: A Christmas Eve visit, because House isn’t quite ready to let go. Written for the LJ House/Cameron Secret Santa fic exchange.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own House, Cameron, or any other fictional doctors. Nor do I own John Lennon.  
**A/N:** This was written as a gift for my friend jesmel as part of the Secret Santa fic exchange on the LJ house_cameron comm. Thanks to athousandsmiles for both her awesome beta services and for organizing this exchange in the first place :D

***

**And so this is Christmas (and what have we done?)**

Brushing the snow from his grey woollen jacket, he enters the hospital on a gust of frigid wind, going in through a side door leading into the emergency room waiting area. Pausing just inside the door, he stops to regain his bearings and take a moment to look around. It's almost eerie how similar his current surroundings are to another ER, hundreds of miles and what seems like half a universe away. The same uninspired décor and the same familiar aroma of illness combined with antibacterial gel. The same bored looking intake clerk and the same random sampling of humanity sitting in vinyl and chrome chairs, leafing through tattered magazines or staring at the muted television with its closed captioned words floating across the bottom of the screen. He could be anywhere, in virtually any hospital in the country.

But he's not. He's in hers. In her emergency room. Again.

He was angry when he heard she had taken a position in another ER, angrier than he had any right to be, and yes, he did recognize he had no right at all. Some part of him he hadn't even been fully aware of assumed when she left that she would do better, be more than she had been when she was still voluntarily bound to him. She has the natural-born talent and thanks to him, the training, to be so much more, so why break away only to end up languishing in another place like this? Makes no sense, but then, she never did and maybe this time it will work to his advantage.

Slipping his hand into his pocket and lightly grasping its contents, he approaches the clerk behind the desk. In his pocket, paper crackles lightly from the pressure of his fingers. The woman ignores him and continues her telephone conversation.

"Yes, honey, I'm almost done now. I'll be home in time to help you leave out cookies for Santa."

Another similarity to Princeton, he notes. Idiot employees who'd rather gab on the phone than do their damned jobs.

"I'm looking for Allison Cameron," he announces. The woman holds up an index finger and continues her conversation. He's not in the mood to be patient, though when is he ever? Reaching a long arm over the divider, he presses the release button on the phone before returning his hand to his pocket.

"Allison Cameron," he repeats, ignoring the clerk's indignant look. "She's a doctor here. The sooner you tell me where I can find her, the sooner you can call your brat back and tell him some more lies about Jolly Old Saint Nick."

She's apparently smarter than he would rather give her credit for, because she recognizes the logic in his words immediately and provides him with an answer. "Dr. Cameron is with a patient," she says. "If you would care to have a seat, I'll inform her she has a visitor as soon as she's free."

But it's not the answer he wants. "Not good enough," he proclaims as he continues to toy with the object in his pocket.

"Excuse me?" she asks, though he knows damned well that she heard him.

"Not. Good. Enough," he repeats, emphasizing the break between words as though each comprises its own sentence. He can't sit and wait. If he sits and waits, he'll think. And if he thinks, there is a good chance he'll be forced to acknowledge what a spectacularly bad idea coming here really was. No, he has no time to sit around and wait. "I'm a doctor. I need to consult with Dr. Cameron about a former patient of hers. It's a life and death matter. Which exam room is she in?"

The clerk is obviously not buying his story. "Have a seat…sir…" she says, sarcasm creeping into her tone. "I'm sure she'll be available soon. Unless an emergency comes in. Since, you know, that's what we do here. Look after emergencies."

He nods, and turns away, taking a couple of steps toward the waiting room as a fake out, then swerving and heading quickly past the clerk and through a door helpfully labelled "Treatment Area". She follows close on his heels, sounding to him, in his current state of single-mindedness, a great deal like an adult does to the Peanuts gang.

"Cameron!" he calls, determined to find her before the clerk calls security and he ends up ejected onto his ass in a snow bank. "Cameron! Come out, come out where ever you are." He limps down the hall, poking his head into rooms at random.

And then, almost like he's summoned her forward from the past, there she is. Standing, writing in a chart at a counter in a vacant exam room, she looks for all the world like she never left Princeton. She's dressed in familiar pink scrubs topped with a navy cardigan, her gold-toned glasses are sliding down her nose and her blond hair is up in a messy bun. And her expression is one of pure, unadulterated shock. For a minute he's confused, it's like he's caught up in some kind of time warp and now he just needs to recall why exactly he's come downstairs to see her. But only for a minute.

"You lift those scrubs from PPTH?" he asks.

"You come all this way to search for stolen property?" she shoots back, recovering from the surprise of his sudden appearance just as quickly as she should. On some level at least, she had to expect he'd show up sooner or later. There is a certain precedent, after all. Maybe she even hoped it would be today.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Cameron. I couldn't stop him," the clerk he'd forgotten about whines.

"That's okay, Rita. No one can. You can go back to your desk; I'll handle him."

"Yeah, Rita. She'll handle me. Shoo." The clerk shoots him one last annoyed look as he closes the door in her face.

"What are you doing here House?" she wants to know, as soon as he's facing her again.

"Came to see you, but more to the point, what are _you_ doing here? A job in our ER so you could be near me is one thing. But a job in an ER just 'cause? It's a little sad, Cameron."

Removing her glasses, she sets them down on top of the chart. "I needed a job. This was available. Again, why are you _here_?"

"People can't visit former co-workers?" He walks further into the room, tries to make a grab for the chart she was writing in, but she's too quick for him and pulls it away.

"People can. You can't. Not without an angle," she asserts.

His eyes lock onto hers. He knows that challenging him is not what she wants to do right now. He just has to wait it out. Five, four, three…

She sighs and looks away first. "How are you?"

That's more like it.

"Oh, you know. The same. Leg hurts, blah blah blah." He starts opening the laminate cabinets and drawers in front of him, checking out the supplies.

"Still off the Vicodin?" she asks.

He nods, shoving a drawer closed. Nothing of interest in here. Well, aside from the woman in front of him. "One day at a time."

"Good," she says quietly. "That's good."

They descend into silence and he walks over to the tiny window set in the back wall. It's frosted for privacy so he can't really see out, but the illusion that he's doing something other than drowning in the quiet awkwardness of the room helps calm his unopiated nerves.

Still facing the window, he says, "It's Christmas Eve."

"Yes, I know."

"Got you something." From his pocket he pulls a small package, haphazardly wrapped in colourful paper, and turns it over and over in his hand. "It's kind of a tradition, giving you something for Christmas. I don't have too many of those so I didn't want to break it." He turns back around to face her and holds it out.

Her mouth has formed a small, perfect O and she looks to him like she might cry or something. Instantly he feels like a fool for coming here and reminding her of things she'd probably just as soon forget. He drops his hand.

But now she's smiling at him, though her eyes still look a bit watery, and she's holding out her hand. So, in it he deposits the festive little box. Hopping up to sit on the paper covered exam table, he waits for her to open it.

She joins him on the table before lifting the top off the box and shifting aside the tissue paper. Gasping slightly, she pulls out a fine, gold chain. Attached to it is a perfect, miniature, golden house.

The sound she emits at the sight of his offering is just the reaction he was hoping for and he smiles slightly at her pleasure.

"House, it's beautiful. Thank you," she says, holding it up in front of her and admiring the fine details of the tiny house.

"Yeah well, thought you might like a reminder of the man who taught you everything you know," he replies, his smile widening. He holds out a hand, palm up. "Gimme."

Looking confused, she allows the chain to pool in his palm.

"Turn," he commands, spiralling an index finger in the air front of her face.

Understanding now, she turns to face away from him and permits him to fasten the chain around her neck. He does so slowly, allowing his fingers to brush against the back of her neck. "So, like you said, with me there's always an angle." His voice is quiet. Intimate.

"I know."

"And I assume you also know what it is this time." The chain is fastened now, but she remains facing away from him. He slides his hands along her shoulders and down her arms, feeling her shiver, before letting them drop away.

"Yes," she says, turning back to face him. "You want me to come back. But what I don't know is why. Why me? Why do you care? Why, every time I break free of you, do you feel the need to draw me back in?"

"You're an excellent doctor," he says, not really avoiding the question, but rather working his way up to it. "One of the best, if not _the_ best, I've ever trained. Your instincts are dead on and you have what it takes to be _great_. And you don't even care. Instead, you're here."

She looks at him askance.

"Okay, yes, you care. You care 'til it comes out your ears. But you don't care about being great. And you don't care about the same things as the others. Taub's in it for the challenge. Chase and Foreman want respect and recognition. Thirteen's different again; she's just there for the distraction. And for me, yes, it's all about the puzzles." He stops and gives her a loaded look, a look that says, _yes, I remember every word you said_, before continuing.

She blushes slightly but remains silent, so he continues, fingers working at making small rips in the paper he's seated on while he speaks.

"But you, you care about the people. In spite of my bad influence, you've kept hold of your humanity. I need that in my life. I need that check and balance. All those things you said when you left, they're all true. I've lost something in the last couple of years that you weren't working with me. It started when the team, our team, broke apart. I'm trying to get it back. Getting off the drugs was a start. Getting my licence back, getting the team back together were more steps along the way, but I can see now that I did that last part wrong. I'm not going to repeat that mistake. I'm not going to manipulate you, or try to trick you, or talk you into anything you don't want. I'm just going to ask. Will you come back? Will you consider coming back?"

At that, he falls silent and waits. She doesn't say anything for a long moment. Getting worried, he leans closer to her and bumps her shoulder gently with his. "You don't have to decide now, but it would be good if you gave me _something _here."

She breathes in deeply and lets it out slowly. "I can't. I'm sorry House, but I can't come back. I can't _go_ back. There are too many ghosts in that building. Some friendly, some not, but all of them ghosts just the same. I need to start again in the land of the living. So should you."

And the bitch of it is, he can't even argue. She's right. She's better off here away from the memories that have been dragging her down, away from Chase, who was never good enough for her in the first place, and away from him and all the shit that comes with being a part of his inner circle.

He knew she wouldn't come back, knew it all along. But he had hoped for some sort of concession. He had hoped that when she turned down the job, he might at least get an offer of friendship. He misses her and thought she might miss him too. But no such offer appears forthcoming, so he looks down at his feet and gives a short nod. "Okay. I get it." He slides off the table and starts for the door. He has one hand on the doorknob when he stops, turns around again and takes two long strides toward her.

"You said you loved me, that you wanted to heal me. I don't want you to think of yourself as the one who failed to do that. Instead, think of yourself as the only one who ever stood a chance." He holds a hand out to her. She nods and he can see the tears starting to fill her eyes again. When she grasps his hand, he doesn't shake. Instead he pulls her off the table and up against him, wrapping his arms tightly around her. Softly enough that she probably won't feel it, he presses a kiss to the side of her head.

"Take care of yourself," he murmurs in her ear, before releasing her and quickly limping out of the room.

Over the last six months, he's learned to deal with his pain in new, healthier ways in order to compensate for the lack of opiates flowing through his blood. Physical therapy has strengthened what remains of his thigh muscle. Psychological therapy has begun to ease his emotional pain. The old House would have taken her decision personally, though he would have buried the hurt so deep within himself that no one ever would have known. The old House would have been in a bar, so drunk and high within the hour that he would barely know his own name, let alone hers. The old House would have gone home to Princeton and would never have spoken of her again.

This new House isn't quite sure yet how he's going to deal with this particular pain, but in spite of the desire for Vicodin he can feel deep in his bones, or maybe because of it, the way he deals won't be the old way. And anyway, there's always next Christmas. It's not a tradition he's going to give up.

He's halfway down the hall when he hears her voice call out to him.

"Wait. House, wait. I have a gift for you too."

He turns around and shoots her a disbelieving look.

"No, really. I do. I bought it…before. I didn't know what to do with it. It's not wrapped or anything, but it's at my apartment, and if you want... I'm off in about an hour, if you don't have to get back right away."

"I can wait," he says. Turning around and pushing his way through the swinging doors, he gives the clerk a saucy wink and goes to sit in the waiting room.

The End.


End file.
